


Gatsby

by Ashfen



Series: A Decade of Love [1]
Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Heavy Drinking, Oh yeah this was a doozy to write /s, alcoholism?, hangovers, suggestion of vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashfen/pseuds/Ashfen
Summary: August 31st, 1923.The world had never seemed as bleak as it did now.
Relationships: Jordan Baker & Nick Carraway, Nick Carraway/Jay Gatsby (suggested)
Series: A Decade of Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537345
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Gatsby

August 31st, 1923. A Friday.   
Nick woke up with a racking hangover at noon and rose half past two only to blearily pick up the phone that had been ringing periodically since eight, and hang it up without actually answering whoever had been calling. It was probably Jordan.   
Quite frankly, he didn't give a damn.   
Nothing mattered anymore. Every day was the same thing. He went to work in the morning, and drank himself into a stupor at night. All the speakeasies in West Egg were on a first name basis with him, and he couldn't have cared less about how that made him look. He couldn't have cared less about anything other than filling his glass.   
Today was hardly any different, other than the siren call of a drink being a bit stronger than what had become normal.  
Thirty-one. He'd had his life together a year ago. Now everything had lost its meaning, and life as a whole seemed like a waste of time.  
He haphazardly shrugged on a coat - he'd passed out fully dressed. Again. - and sluggishly made his way out of the little cottage. He knew there was plenty of alcohol in the cellar of Gatsby's mansion, but he'd never touched it.  
That would change tonight. 

"Thhhirty. Thirrrrrrtyyyy ooooone." He turned the syllables over in his mouth before there was a sour taste in the same; another drink would smother it for a while longer, if not making it worse in the process.   
He was shitfaced in the personal study of Gatsby's spectacular mansion with enough bottles of moonshine and whiskey to drown a man, all the lights in the building having shut off for good long ago.   
It had been cozy before, back when Gatsby was alive and the grounds were kept. Velvet curtains had always been neatly drawn shut, save for a slight crack for the window that looked down on Nick's cottage. A now cracked lamp had always been off as he recalled, but he could nearly perfectly envision Gatsby reading by it to this day. He also seemed to recall a pair of round glasses on the desk whenever he was there, but they had vanished since then. 

The room held some of his best memories of Gatsby; of being held, gently swaying to a rhythm only Gatsby could hear, and of near kisses. Just like him, it was a hollow shell of itself without Gatsby.   
"Yannow what? I shooooul...shoo...shudda just missed work that day." He scoffed at his slurred words, but brought the bottle to his lips again anyway. ".... Fffffuck, m'gonna hate myself tomorrow." As if he didn't hate himself anyway. He chased after the numbness being drunk offered constantly, chased it through hell or high waters. He didn't get the numbness that day, but he was just drunk enough to slip in and out of a dream; slumped against the wall as he was. 

_Arms wrapped around him, and Nick was pulled into the center of the room to sway along to a tune gently hummed in his ear. "How long do you think they can go without me old sport?"  
"Forever for all I care."  
Gatsby laughed. It was a rich sound. "And how long can you go without me?"   
"I can't."  
"Of course you can my dear, just what have you been doing up until now?" The man pulled away, and smiled at him. "Just try. See how long you can go."_

"No. No, I can't. I can't do it Jay, please." He was suddenly aware that he had reached out to grab at something unseen, his hands shaking.   
A weak laugh tumbled out, and another, and even more before he was howling with laughter, so much so that he didn't realize he was crying until his breath hitched, but that one moment of realization brought out everything he'd been trying to numb for months. Violent sobs racked his body as he fell to his knees, arms tightly wrapped around his waist. 

Gatsby was gone forever. 

Nick was left nauseous from the lurching in his gut that each heaving wail gave him. 

He'd never meet someone who cared for him like that again. 

He collapsed onto his side, and curled into himself more with every shuddering cry. 

He'd be alone for the rest of his life. 

Only the stars heard Nick's pain that night, and they remained silent as he drifted out of consciousness in a pool of his own sorrow in the first few hours of September 1st, 1923. 

Nick woke up on the tasseled carpet of Gatsby's study with the sun in his eyes and nausea building into his stomach. He was sick of waking up like that, miserable and barely able to move without his stomach lurching. Why did he do this to himself? Why did he hurt constantly? Why did he suffer? The questions spun in his head as he stumbled out into the midday sun. Did he deserve his misery? What he went through?   
Even as he wobbled back into the cottage his mind burned with questions of self worth and misery. 

It screamed in his mind while he answered the phone still ringing inside. "Hmm..?"   
"Nick! God, you're even worse than Marjorie." So it had been Jordan yesterday.   
"... Am I s'posed to know or care who that is?"   
"Good God are you _drunk?_ At _twelve thirty_ in the afternoon?"   
" _Hungover._ I have a right to celebrate my birthday don't I?"   
"Certainly. But not by ignoring everyone and apparently drinking so much that you're still hungover by noon."  
"Why did you call Jordan? Since when do you give a shit about anyone else?"   
"I called because I'm worried about you!"   
"You just want the next piece of gossip!"   
"Are you kidding me?"   
"Go ahead speculate on my sanity however much you want. Just _leave me the hell alone._ "  
"Ha! Some thanks I'm getting for being a friend!"  
"You stopped being any friend of mine a long time ago. Don't even try to say otherwise."  
He put the phone back on the receiver before she could say another word, his body leading him along to the typewriter at his desk.   
"... In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since." The words were muttered like a prayer, and each clatch of the typewriter urged him onwards. There was a story he needed to tell the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my God this was just. Sad to write


End file.
